Our Minds on Freedom

Women and the Struggle for Black Equality in Louisiana, 1924-1967

Shannon Frystak

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780807146750
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Civil Rights in Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Literature on the civil rights movement has long highlighted the leadership of ministerial men and young black revolutionaries, such as Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Stokely Carmichael, and Malcolm X. Recent studies have begun to explore female participation in the struggle for racial justice, but women continue to be relegated to the margins of civil rights history. In Our Minds on Freedom, Shannon Frystak explores the organizational and leadership roles female civil rights activists in Louisiana played from the 1920s to the 1960s. She highlights a diverse group of courageous women who fought alongside their brothers and fathers, uncles and cousins, to achieve a more racially just Louisiana.From the Depression through World War II and the postwar years, Frystak shows, black women in Louisiana joined and led local unions and civil rights organizations, agitating for voting rights and equal treatment in the public arena, in employment, and in admission to the state's institutions of higher learning. At the same time, black and white women began to find common ground in organizations such as the YWCA, the NAACP, and the National Urban League. Frystak explores how women of both races worked together to organize the 1953 Baton Rouge bus boycott, which served as inspiration for the more famous Montgomery bus boycott two years later; to alter the system of unequal education throughout the state; and to integrate New Orleans schools after the 1954 Brown decision.In the early 1960s, a new generation of female activists joined their older counterparts to work with the NAACP, the Congress of Racial Equality, and a number of local grassroots civil rights organizations. Frystak vividly describes the very real dangers they faced canvassing for voter registration in Louisiana's rural areas, teaching in Freedom Schools, and hosting out-of-town civil rights workers in their homes.As Frystak shows, the civil rights movement allowed women to step out of their prescribed roles as wives, mothers, and daughters and become significant actors, indeed leaders, in a social-change structure largely dominated by men. Our Minds on Freedom is a welcome addition to the literature of the civil rights movement and will intrigue those interested in African American history, women's history, Louisiana, or the U.S. South.

1
MAY THE DAY HASTEN

Louisiana Women and Early Struggles for Racial Justice

[W]e pray that . . . the day will come that all men and women regardless of color will have their rightful place in this nation and that we will no longer be the FOOT MATS of this American country and will not be Semi-slaves as we are but Americans. Living and moving with ease them the words of the Holy Bible. . . . “Of one Blood God have made all nations to dwell upon the face of the earth” will be practice [sic] in reality. And although I may be sleeping in my grave, “May the day hasten.”

GEORGIA M. JOHNSON, president of the Alexandria branch of the NAACP, April 30, 1945

In October 1924, police arrested a New Orleans schoolteacher, “Mrs. Beck,” for moving into a house that she had purchased on a “white” block. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) believed that it had found its test case to challenge a residential segregation ordinance passed by the city earlier that September. Hoping to avoid “tedious delays and possible adverse decisions of the State Courts,” the New Orleans branch’s legal team sought to move the case directly to the Fifth District Court and, eventually, to the United States Supreme Court. To accomplish this end, the NAACP attempted to secure a writ of habeas corpus, which stated that should she surrender bail, jailing Mrs. Beck was a violation of the U.S. Constitution.¹ Along with the NAACP’s National Legal Committee, the women’s auxiliary of the NAACP worked actively on the campaign and “plann[ed] a large entertainment to raise funds.”² According to the president of the New Orleans branch, interest in the case was “high and our people are stirred as never before. The Mrs. Beck case is a genuine case.”³

The initial enthusiasm surrounding the Beck case, however, was shortlived. The president of the New Orleans branch, Dr. George W. Lucas, quickly informed the national association that if she surrendered bail, Mrs. Beck could run the risk of remaining in jail for several hours, or even several days. Lucas continued that “Mrs. Beck[,] [being a woman] and a teacher in the public schools,” could not risk going to jail at all, much less remaining in jail for several days as the school board might “take advantage of the situation and possibly dismiss her entirely.” Lucas regretted that “Mrs. Beck is not a man who had the time and interest in the affair to spend the required time in prison and prevent the delay in carrying our cases through the lower courts.” He subsequently recommended they pursue another case, involving “Mr. Harmon,” to challenge the residential segregation law.⁴

The NAACP achieved its desired ruling in Harmon v. Tyler when a local judge, Hugh C. Cage, ruled unconstitutional the residential segregation law that prevented “Negroes living in white neighborhoods and whites living in Negro neighborhoods without the consent of a majority of the residents of either color.” The judge stated, however, that he believed the “ordinance a just and proper one, based on traditions and beliefs” of the South. Judge Cage further hoped that the matter would eventually make it to the U.S. Supreme Court, which could then decide whether the law was within the “police powers of this state.”⁵ Under appeal, Harmon v. Tyler made its way to the Louisiana State Supreme Court, where on March 2, 1925, the higher court overturned Judge Cage’s ruling and upheld the segregation ordinance, arguing that the law protected blacks and whites equally.⁶

Two days later, apparently undeterred by the court’s ruling, Miss Prudhoma Dejoie was arrested for “attempting to interfere with an officer” when she was ordered to stop construction on a house she had purchased in a predominantly white neighborhood.⁷ The NAACP took the Dejoie case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it argued that the New Orleans ordinance violated a 1917 ruling that “no state or municipality could enact residential segregation ordinances.” In 1927, the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed its 1917 Buchanan v. Warley decision and threw out the New Orleans ordinance.⁸

The Beck case and the incident involving Mrs. Dejoie illustrate two important points about the history of women’s early civil rights activism. First, although women pursued the fight for black rights, early histories marginalize and often omit the actions of women like Mrs. Beck and numerous others. The Harmon case was exceptional for its time, but might never have played out if not for the actions of Mrs. Beck. Second, women were significant actors in the tradition of dissent that existed well before what many historians term the beginning of the modern civil rights movement in the 1950s. Inspired by the reformist Zeitgeist of the Progressive Era and the emergent women’s “club movement” of the early twentieth century, black and white southern women recognized and keenly felt the unjust nature of southern race relations and worked to change it.

As recent historians have shown, there is good reason to expand the traditional timeline of the civil rights movement beyond the boundaries set by the Brown decision in 1954 and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.⁹ And the “foremothers” of the movement “proper” deserve mention in their own right. In Louisiana, black and white women protested against Jim Crow segregation and discrimination as early as the 1920s and well into the 1940s, a period when it was dangerous to do so in the Deep South. Though association records clearly indicate that women were widely represented within civil rights organizations, they were more than simply rank-and-file members; they participated in numerous legal “test” cases, joined and agitated through unions, registered to vote, and fought stridently, if not openly, for black rights in public space.¹⁰ Louisiana women were, to be sure, an integral part of a well-established protest tradition before civil rights came to the forefront of national politics in the 1950s.

Still, prior to the 1950s, protest activities in Louisiana were sporadic and mainly local. Thousands of women throughout the state supported the movement not only by attending meetings, but also by agitating within their local communities, acting as spokeswomen, and creating both formal and informal community networks to address the severe poverty, racism, and discrimination experienced by many Louisiana blacks.¹¹ Although many historians have cited the outright “exclusion and limited participation of women in traditionally male-headed civil rights groups,” particularly in early civil rights organizations like the NAACP, Louisiana women seem to have worked around, and within, these limitations.¹² The stories of black and white women opposing the racial status quo by working through the NAACP, unions, and progressive women’s organizations illustrate the long tradition of activism that existed in many Louisiana communities prior to 1954.

“YOU DO NOT SEEM TO REALIZE THAT THE SOCIAL ORDER HAS CHANGED”

The NAACP was the first and arguably most significant organization to work for black rights in Louisiana. Founded in 1909, a group of like-minded men and women institutionalized and led the movement for racial equality at a time when most white progressives paid little attention to blacks. The founders and early membership of the NAACP were uniquely an integrated group of liberal-minded individuals dedicated to the ideals of racial justice and equality.¹³ As one historian has noted, in Louisiana the NAACP “provided the backbone of the freedom struggle.”¹⁴ In 1914, the year the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed its 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision giving final legal backing to the de facto “separate, but equal” doctrine that ensured the unequal status of the nation’s African American population, the first NAACP chapter was organized in the Deep South, in Shreveport, in northwestern Louisiana. The branch lasted for just ten years, yet by 1930 eight more branches were organized throughout the state, including one in New Orleans established in 1915.

In the early years of the NAACP’s existence, many rural branches in Louisiana, and throughout the Deep South, found it difficult to sustain a stable membership base. Extreme poverty, illiteracy, lack of a black professional class, absence of paved roads to travel to meetings, and, perhaps most problematic for Louisiana, a language barrier in the rural, southern area of the state where many spoke only French, all contributed to the NAACP’s inability to establish a solid base, much less flourish in the smaller, more rural cities and towns. The New Orleans chapter, however, as well as other urban chapters, held steady and were integral to the success of the larger freedom struggle in the state.¹⁵

The NAACP’s integrated membership consisted mostly of professionals and small businessmen, together with women who were most often housewives or teachers. As early as 1917, the New Orleans branch created a Women’s Auxiliary, which, among other actions, organized a committee to protest the use of “colored women prisoners on the streets and in the public markets” and the segregation of women in the red-light district of the city.¹⁶ In 1925, the New Orleans branch was awarded the Madam C. J. Walker Scholarship for the “biggest advance in membership in 1924.”¹⁷ Well into the 1940s, the NAACP continued its work on numerous test cases in an effort to break down the segregation laws enacted at the height of the Jim Crow era. The “Mrs. Beck” residential segregation case of 1924 proved to be only the tip of the iceberg.

Although the NAACP remained active during the Depression years, member participation in all civil rights organizations decreased during the 1930s due to a variety of factors. The unprecedented extension of federal power during the Depression benefited some Louisiana blacks: they participated in adult education and vocational programs, literacy training, and, minimally, in public works projects such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Though racism and discrimination existed throughout the nation, African Americans in the South were forced to contend with entrenched racist bureaucratic systems and discriminatory local officials put in charge of public assistance programs. In many ways, at both the local and national levels, the New Deal “reinforced existing power relationships.” President Franklin Roosevelt, for instance, refused to support an antilynching bill, fearful of losing the support of southern politicians for his New Deal initiatives.¹⁸ Discrimination and violence, including lynching, increased as poor whites and blacks vied for the already inadequate relief from local administrators. During the New Deal years, the NAACP often found little success when investigating lynchings and discrimination against blacks receiving aid through government programs.

Although membership in the Louisiana branches decreased during the Depression years, it rose again as the United States entered World War II. During the war years, the country embraced a new patriotism, and African Americans saw an opportunity to claim victory at home as well as abroad. During the 1940s, 1 million African Americans migrated from rural to urban areas, and more than 2 million southern blacks migrated north and west for opportunities in the wartime industries. Along with an enhanced awareness of their status as second-class citizens, African Americans embraced a new militancy, believing it their time to fight for their rights as Americans. The number of registered black voters in the North as well as the South climbed, and NAACP branches across the South benefited; membership grew from 50,000 in 355 branches in 1940 to almost 450,000 in 1,073 branches in 1946.¹⁹

Even as jobs related to the wartime buildup seemed to abound, racial discrimination still existed at every level. Blacks, and particularly black women, still performed the most menial and subordinate tasks. Due to a wartime shortage of workers, many African American women were able to leave domestic service, but they usually found themselves relegated to the worst positions in the industrial plants. Much like their male counterparts, black women actively embraced the new racial awareness of the war era; between July 1943 and December 1944, nearly one-quarter of all complaints brought before the Federal Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) established by President Roosevelt were by black women.²⁰

Gradually, women began to challenge racial discrimination in the public arena. In Alexandria, Louisiana, Georgia Johnson presided over the NAACP chapter, attacking the system of unequal voting rights. In Baton Rouge, Viola Johnson helped break down segregation in the state’s professional schools, while throughout the state, other black women worked with the national NAACP to attack discrimination in teachers’ pay. Others cooperated with white women to press for equal treatment in teachers’ unions. At the same time, progressive white women worked for racial justice in their own organizations, including the YWCA, and joined predominantly black organizations such as the NAACP and the National Urban League.

During the war years, African American men and women protesting their place in southern society were met with extreme white resistance. Alexandria, Louisiana, located in the rural midsection of the state, exemplifies the militancy that erupted in many southern communities during the 1940s. A concentration of military bases in the area may have contributed to heightened racial tensions; a strong NAACP branch added to the volatility of the situation. On behalf of Alexandria’s black citizens, the NAACP relentlessly pursued action against police brutality and voter registration abuses. The NAACP also sued to use city-owned buildings for black functions.²¹

Black troops stationed in Alexandria had already experienced violence at the hands of whites when, in 1942, a black soldier resisted arrest by a white military officer; twenty-nine black soldiers were injured in the resulting violence, three critically. During the melee, black female employees of a local diner also experienced severe repercussions. In the pursuit of justice, a female witness, Mary Scales, reported the incident to the NAACP. Scales, a twenty-two-year-old waitress, was shot during the conflict; having witnessed the imbroglio, she wrote the national organization requesting that President Roosevelt investigate “the race riot there.” Another woman, Mary Trotter, similarly reported that a white military policeman struck her, causing her to fall on her mouth and knock out some of her teeth. Before she could get up, he kicked her in the side. Trotter further reported a lot of “hollering and cursing.” According to the black-owned Louisiana Weekly, women were beaten, kicked, and thrown out of other Alexandria establishments. Another waitress, who wished to remain anonymous, stated that she and another woman hid two black soldiers in the back of the diner and, when white soldiers attempted to enter, locked the door. Finally, after things quieted down, they let the “two soldiers slip out the back way.” One witness called the incident a “Little Pearl Harbor.”²² Illustrative of this renewed commitment to achieving equality, and despite the dangers, the women persisted in their fight, not only by aiding their black soldier brothers, but also in pushing the NAACP to investigate.

At the center of the Alexandria movement was a controversial and fiercely determined newspaper editor and businesswoman, Georgia Johnson, chairperson of the Alexandria NAACP during the mid-1940s. Little is known about Johnson’s background, and her status as chairperson of the branch throughout the years appears unclear. Yet, her involvement with the Alexandria NAACP illustrates a high level of commitment as well as strong leadership abilities in this predominantly male-led organization. Her voluminous correspondence with NAACP officials, p...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• CIVIL RIGHTS TIMELINE
• INTRODUCTION
• 1 MAY THE DAY HASTEN Louisiana Women and Early Struggles for Racial Justice
• 2 SUBVERSIVE WOMEN Interracial Alliances
• 3. HARDLY THE “SOUTHERN LADY” Boycotts and the Vote
• 4 LITTLE ROCK COMES TO NEW ORLEANS Louisiana’s School Desegregation Crisis, 1959–1962
• 5 THE SIT-INS
• 6 THE FREEDOM RIDES AND THE END OF THE BELOVED COMMUNITY IN NEW ORLEANS
• 7 WOMEN IN THE FIELD I The Voter Education Project in Rural Louisiana, 1962–1964 157
• 8 WOMEN IN THE FIELD II Armed Resistance and the Pursuit of Local Leadership, 1965–1967
• EPILOGUE
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX
• Foot Notes